


Unreal City, Wait

by UmbraEmber



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Draco Malfoy, Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, BAMF Ginny Weasley, Blood and Injury, Canon Related, Character Death, Death Eater Draco Malfoy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Major Character Injury, Mental Health Issues, Not Canon Compliant, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), POV Draco Malfoy, POV Ginny Weasley, Partner Betrayal, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Post-Betrayal, Post-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Redemption, Sad Draco Malfoy, Spies & Secret Agents, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:40:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29968584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbraEmber/pseuds/UmbraEmber
Summary: A war-torn Britain, an Order on the brink of collapse, and one Death Eater who might change the tides in their favor. If they let him.Draco Malfoy redemption arc. Friends to lovers to enemies to...? No character bashing. Check the tags, they may change. Inspired by T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land and Zuko’s redemption.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. broken fingernails

At the center of the room lit only by a floating sputtering chandelier, a man sat bound to a chair. His gaze remained fixed on the grimy floorboards beneath his bare, bruised feet. Stained blonde hair fell around his face, casting his features in deep shadow. 

Ginny’s own eyes focused on him as she entered the room. The Order was gathering around, most sitting at the tables arranged in a square around the solitary figure. Some members leaned against the wall or loitered in the doorways. Her closest friends, her family, all sat at the table directly across from him. They had been the ones to discover him, after all. Capture him. They were the ones who had given him those bruises, the ones who made him bleed. He didn’t look at them even as they stared fixedly at him. Didn’t look up from the floor. Ginny wanted to scream at him. Push past the tables and grip his chin. Dig her fingernails into his bleeding face. Demand answers. Demand he look at her. She didn’t. Instead, she noted the empty chair beside Ron. As usual he had saved it for her. She slipped into it, hiding her trembling hands under the table. 

“So, obviously a trap,” Ron said to the unnervingly quite room, finishing whatever it was he had been saying. Ginny assumed it had been a very compelling argument. He placed his cup down and ran the back of a knuckle over the long, raised scar on his cheek. A nervous habit. A constant reminder. Ron had been lucky to survive. He nodded his acknowledgement at Ginny’s arrival. “Alright?” She nodded back. “I was just saying, in brief, he’s a bloody Death Eater. His entire life, raised to hate us and kill us and we’re expected to believe he’s suddenly turned good? Blatant trap. Embarrassingly easy to spot plot.” 

Ginny thumbed the folder waiting in front of her. _His_ folder. A list of crimes and travesties. A list of dead. She didn’t even want to think his name. Didn’t even want to give that word space inside her mind.

“And if it’s not?” She asked quietly. “If it isn’t a trap?”

“He’s a Death Easter,” Harry said, not nearly as calmly as Ron had. He was sitting with his muscular arms crossed tight against his chest. A dusting of facial hair coating his wide jaw. Blood that wasn’t his own splattered his robes. “And not just in name, but in act.” 

Ginny felt Harry’s eyes turn to her, breaking from his bound prey in the center of the room. She ignored him, refused him the satisfaction of eye contact. He wouldn’t share what he knew, not without provocation. He’d gone this long already. But she couldn’t push her luck. Couldn’t antagonize him. She’d have to handle this carefully. Cautiously. In a way against her Gryffindor nature. In the way _he_ had taught her, so long ago. She shrugged and slid the folder down the table to Hermione. 

“Thanks,” Hermione said, spinning the folder towards Luna, “but I don’t need it. I’ve got it memorized.” There was a fire in Hermione’s eyes. A hatred. Unlike Harry and Ron, she didn’t look away from _his_ crumpled form. Didn’t break contact even for a moment. And despite the look in her eyes, her wand was steady in her hand. “Every name. Every child this man has orphaned.”

Ginny held herself composed. Held herself like he wasn’t sitting there bound and vulnerable. Like his fate wasn’t in the hands of those he had hurt. The survivors of those he had helped kill. Foolish, stupid man. But then he had once been a foolish, stupid boy and what were they to turn into if given the chance? 

“Should we let him speak?” Luna asked. “Defend himself?”

“He’s free to speak if he wishes,” Harry spat.

“Now, now,” Molly muttered as she entered the room. “What have we here?”

“We came as soon as we could,” a voice began before stopping abruptly. “That bastard!”

“Fred!” George grappled with his twin’s arms and pulled him back. “We’ll need a minute. Or more.”

“Angelina’s in that folder, too,” Hermione said softly when Fred and George were safely out of earshot. She didn’t have to say who else marred his folder. The name that they all refused to speak. 

Ginny didn’t turn to the door. Didn’t take into account the dozens of angry and hurt faces. His gaze had finally risen from the floor with Fred’s cry. But now he was looking at her through greasy, dirty strands of blonde hair. Red gashes sliced his cheeks. His arms were pulled back and his knees exposed through rips in his trousers; raw, bloodied knees. Despite it all, when his eyes connected with hers, she felt afraid. There was a power to them. A severity. Grey storms crashing over her shores. Silver swords slicing through her skin. If his eyes were silver skies, she was blood red oceans crashing beneath them. She shivered but couldn’t look away. 

“Did you hear me?” Harry roared, leaping to his feet, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. “Speak!”

“Harry,” Hermione began, her voice more stern when talking with him than it would’ve been to anyone else, “if you can’t keep calm, perhaps you ought to leave?”

“Remain calm?” Ginny felt the power of his words crackling off of him. He’d always been shit about controlling his magic when he was emotional. So unlike the man who remained rigid and steady even while bound. “Calm? He’s a killer. A murderer.”

“You don’t need to tell us,” Ron said icily. “We know, Harry. Better than most.”

Molly released a noise in between a gasp and a cry at the reminder. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said. Ginny didn’t need to see her mother to know she had started to cry. To know she was unable to cope with the memories that must have flooded her. Memories of the other name that Ginny couldn’t bare to even think.

“If we can’t remain calm and talk about this situation rationally—“

“Situation?” Sirius snapped from across the room. “Pray tell what’s the situation from where you’re sitting, Hermione? Cause from where I’m standing there’s a man waiting to be dead in the middle of our Meeting room.”

“He could be a valuable asset—“ Lupin tried, giving Hermione a sympathetic glance.

“He’s a murderer!” Moody said, agreeing at once with Harry without even knowing it as he stormed in the room. “Bloody evil son of a bitch!”

He must have had his wand raised because Hermione sighed and raised her own. “Alastor, don’t. He’s a prisoner. You know that’s not how we do things.” 

“Yes, well waiting for battle has left us dead, hasn’t it!” Harry said with venom, sitting back down at his chair. Even sat, he took up an impressive amount of space, the raw magical energy bouncing around the dark room like candlelight. No, like a roaring fire licking at their skin, their hands. And still their prisoner remained unaffected. Remained stoic and silent. Preserved in his state of injury. Harry was all energy. All powerful, spinning motion. The other man sat in contrast. Unmoving. Suspended. The sky before it began to rain. Heavy with chaotic and unspoken possibility. 

“We’re doing better than—”

“Save it Hermione,” Ginny said. She stood, picked the file back up from where it sat unopened in front of Luna, and walked around the table. His eyes were still on hers. Still fixated. Still crashing over her skin and leaving slices. Still hanging heavy over her, just before the thunder. Before she was drenched through. She stalked toward him. The folder shaking in her hands. Fuck being calculated. Fuck the lessons he had taught her in the dark. Their whispered understanding. She wasn’t a Slytherin. 

“Do you know what this is?” She asked him. She willed her voice to be strong. It had been so long since she had seen him. 

He didn’t answer but a sick smile twisted his features. She hated to see him like this. Not bound, not injured. She could cope with that. Had rescued half her family from that. It was the look in his eyes. The twist to his smile. Fucked. He was fucked in the head. There was something missing from his eyes. Or something there that hadn’t been before. She stood before him, her hair longer than when they had been in school, covering scars that littered her neck. She couldn’t move from him, couldn’t speak. She needed to know what he was thinking, what he thought of her. Would he be thinking back to those quiet moments? Back to their school years spent teasing. When the smile on his lips could turn soft and gentle. When he was young and full of blue sky eyes and soft breezes. Before he lost that thing. Or the thing he had gained. Was he even sorry? For all he had done? For losing that part of himself? Ginny steadied herself. 

“I’ll take that as a no. It’s a folder that’s going to help us decide what to do with you. There’s lists inside, see. Every person you’ve killed. Every murderer you’ve helped.”

“Ginny,” Ron said from behind her. She could hear the worry in his voice but she didn’t care. And she didn’t stop. Not like any of the Order would deprive her of this moment, anyway. 

She leaned in closer to _him_ , the bound man, the bloodied. The copper smell he was soaked in overwhelmed her. But she was a vermillion ocean. She could crash like the thunder. She could churn up the shores. She whispered into his dirt coated ear.

“Lists of every fuck up you’ve made since you left. Every step you took further away from the future we could have had. Every time I think I’ve reached my limit in how much I can hate someone, and you prove me wrong.”

Something drifted across his face. Something like pain. But it was as though he couldn’t reach it. As though pain had its fingers digging into his bones, too deep, too far for him to react. Past his skin and sinew and muscles and blood, past the components of his face, and straight into his marrow. Because thunder, while strong, was fleeting. And her hatred for him was vast and deep. She straightened up, threw the file at his lap, and turned to Hermione. 

“You can release him, don’t you think? One man against this whole room? Against all of the Order?”

“I suppose…”

“Don’t be stupid!” A red hot fury coated Harry’s face. All fire. Silly man. Didn’t he know the oceans paid no mind to the flares on the shore? “Don’t you dare.” Which practically forced Hermione’s hand. 

When Ginny turned back around, _his_ arms had relaxed and fallen to his sides. There was a droop to the left one as though he had broken it. An unnatural bend to it. A tension in his neck released as well, his shoulders dropping down. The room collectively tensed. Sirius lurched forwards. Harry gripped the table with one hand, his wand with the other. Ron watched his baby sister with a fearful curiosity. Ginny felt the movements but didn’t react. Saw them out of the corner of her eye. Felt Sirius’ glare on her and Luna’s nervous twitch. Practically heard Moody’s grip tighten on his wand. 

“Pick it up, Draco,” Ginny hissed. His name tumbled so easily from her lips. Always so easily. “Pick up all the reasons I hate you.”

Draco’s steady hands left bloodied fingerprints on the folder. Even his fingernails were broken. Torn off and stained the copper brown of drying blood. Her own dug crevasses into her palms, her hands in fists. He glanced through a brief summary page with his family tree, his education. It included a photo of him sneering, taken back when he was polished, shiny, young and new to the real world. Back when his hair was clean and slicked back, his eyes narrow but bright, his skin smooth and blemish free. Back when he might’ve believed in something. Now he sat before her rotten and tarnished. He flicked the page over, and there, the first name in his file. 

_Arthur Weasley._

  
  


* * *

> On Margate Sands.
> 
> I can connect
> 
> Nothing with nothing.
> 
> The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
> 
> My people humble people who expect
> 
> Nothing.
> 
> -T.S Eliot


	2. fear in a handful of dust

“Aren’t you going to speak?” Ginny asked him quietly. 

Quietly. He smiled to himself. He could pretend she had asked softly. Kindly. But only when he wasn’t looking at the burning in her eyes. When he stared down at the folder, he could pretend she was speaking with care. Right, the folder. He shook his head. He was smiling at the folder. At the list of names and events. At his actions they had carefully chronicled. Yes, he thought. He would speak. It was time to speak. He parted his lips and blood slipped out, running down his chin. Perhaps not. 

He laughed. At the timing, at the absurdity. At himself.

“You think that’s funny?” Ginny spat. “Want me to show you something real funny?”

“I need my wand,” he replied. She swam in front of his eyes. A golden flame. 

“What?” 

“My wand,” he repeated. And he dropped the folder to the floor and leaned back. His rib popped. His shoulder creaked. He ignored the rippling pain. 

“Don’t be stupid!” a voice cried. Draco couldn’t make out who had said it. The countless faces in this room were a blur. Ghosts without outlines. Shimmering shapes that surged every time he breathed a little heavy. The dust caught in the light, floating and drifting and insignificant. Ash from her fire. Ash caught in his breath. 

Even in his current state, he held a power over them. And that thought reassured him. They feared him even like this. Even if he couldn’t make out who they were. Even if they were ghosts behind her ember hair. He wanted to touch it. Wrap the burning strands around his scarred hand. Her face was clear. Even in the dim light, he could see the green of her eyes. But then he wasn’t sure what was real and what was memory. There were hints of time. The scars running along her neck. Her hair longer. Fine lines nestled beside her eyes. He had missed her. Missed the details. The nuances to her face. Where did his memory fade and his reality shine? Was any of it her?

And before he could puzzle it out, she was dropping his wand on his lap. 

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

He smiled and caressed his wand with his left hand. His old friend. Familiar thrum of magic waiting for him. Normally he’d use his right hand but that index finger was snapped back. He pressed the tip of his wand into his leg and hissed as his skin sizzled. A hole formed, the size of a coin, with a black outline. His skin charred. He dropped his wand. The pain was distracting. He clenched his jaw, licked away some of the blood that coated his teeth, and reached inside his thigh with his finger and thumb. At a certain point, pain became undefined. A vague, unspecific churning in his stomach. A spike of anxiety down his back. He hurt everywhere so it felt like he hurt nowhere in particular. 

His bloodied fingers shook from the pain and he dropped the vial to the floor. Thin, narrow, made of glass. Fragile vial that he had kept inside him. Brittle. Like his bones now. Like his breath. 

“I know it’s late,” he coughed, “but consider it a— a birthday present.”

Ginny was horrified. He could see it on her face. Narrowed brows, widened eyes, parted mouth. She had no right to be. They’d all seen worse in this war. Draco’s fingers were shaking as he wiped them against his dirty trousers. Pointless. Habitual. Most of him was bloody at this point.

“What is that?” she asked. 

“Why don’t you open it and find out?”

“Don’t!” One of the other faces said. Draco tried to focus on them, figure out who the voice belonged to. But did it matter? Just blurs of hatred. Blurs of danger. He could see their wands, their hands, could focus on their every move. He couldn’t make out their eyes. Not anymore. Maybe it was easier this way.

He could see her and that was hard enough.

“That would be a stupid thing to do,” another voice added. “Ginny. Come on, now.”

But she crouched down and picked the vial up. Rolled it between her fingers, coating them in his red blood. It suited her. Red. His flame. She looked up at him as she rubbed her thumb over the cork. Watching for his reaction. He attempted a reassuring smile again. She winced and looked away. Right. His teeth. And then she looked back up, as though daring herself, and popped the cork off. 

The vial shook in her hand and he knew it would begin to burn. He could almost feel the warmth between his own fingers. She dropped it. It rolled with a clatter toward him. Already expanding. Its contents already unfurling. The pages and pages of his notes flowing like water across the floor. 

“Draco…” 

“I kept my own notes, too.” And he couldn’t help it. He had to get in one cutting thing. Had to feel elevated somehow. He felt vulnerable surrounded by the vanilla ocean of pages, his wand buried beneath them. “Things that you’d never find in those little folders of yours.”

His blood continued to drip. Stained the pages as they filled the floor. One of the strangers lifted their wand and pointed it at his notes. His work. His sacrifice. Everything he’d ever done, collected, and buried. Everything he had. And with a flutter, the paper flew up from the ground and settled in neat piles. 

And somehow that simple act illuminated something of the witch. He could make out her bushy hair. Brown and golden under the chandelier. Her eyes followed. Narrow slits that watched him warily. Her mouth a thin line. Pursed and stiff and orderly like the notes she spelled. Granger, of course. 

Granger lifted a page and then another, her eyes scanning the words. “These are maps.”

“Some.” He answered even though she seemed to be speaking to herself. 

She nodded, her curls bouncing around her ears, and moved the maps to one side, picking up another stack and flicking through it. “Spells. Codes. Ciphers. Names. Malfoy…”

“He said he had a plan,” Draco said, cutting her off. “Said I was supposed to—” he paused to cough again. He flattened his palm and blew against it, as though he could scatter the blood. Could blow it away from his skin like dust floating through the air. Maybe it did. Maybe the blood lifted away from his skin and drifted into the light. But he knew it didn’t. He watched with fascination as it instead stained his palm.

“What?” Ginny said, taking a few more steps closer. “Draco, who said what?”

But Draco couldn’t speak anymore. The pain was solidifying. Specifying. Settling. In his jaw. It ached. His lungs burned. He stayed staring at the blood on his palm and he felt it. He felt everything. The way his stomach turned, his eyes pulsed, his throat closed. He let out a cry. A shriek. A noise that caused Ginny to stumble back away from him. 

“I’m dying,” he whispered. And he meant it. He believed it. “I’m—”

But he was silenced by his vomit as it rose from his churning stomach. Silenced by the tears that streamed down his face.

“Help me. Please. Somebody. Help me.”

And then all the faces in the room followed his pain and hardened. Gained edges, gained a thickness. A reality. Dust settling along forms. There was Potter, face red and eyes glaring. Weasley with his red hair and his Gryffindor concern. The room was filled with people he had memorized, names he had learned, weaknesses he’d studied. And there, closest to him, unwavering. Ginny. His Ginny. She looked at him with such horror and shock and he swore he could see it. He could see concern, too. He could remember her looking at him like that so long ago. Had closed his eyes and thought of that look through countless cold nights. It was there, he was sure of it. 

“Help. Please!”

And then she turned from him. Said something he couldn’t hear over the unbidden, uncontrolled noises he was making. Like a dying animal. Guttural and high-pitched and panicked. The noises he had teased out of other people. The last noises of those who had died at the end of his wand. This was payment. This was retribution. He would see all of their faces with clarity before he died. Served him right.

And then the pain was releasing. And the room was growing dark. And her red hair swayed as she walked away. 

“Help me. Why won’t somebody help me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there’s chapter two! Title from The Waste Land. I think I’ve decided to make each chapter title for this entire work lines from the poem. And alternate povs from Ginny and Draco. Lemme know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> The concept: loose AU loosely based on Zuko’s redemption arc. 
> 
> I hope you stick around to see where this goes! I know a lot of people view this ship as a crack ship but my Romeo + Juliet heart adores it :) 
> 
> The title and quote at the bottom are taken from The Waste Land by T.S Eliot.


End file.
